Movers and stayers in STEM enrollment in Italy: who performs better?

Abstract

Recently, the mobility behavior of Italian university students has garnered increasing interest from both social scientists and politicians. The very particular geographical characteristics of the country, together with the recognized persistence of a significant economic gap between the southern and northern regions, drive a large number of students to move from the first macro-region to the latter. As this phenomenon has several economic and social implications for policy-makers—at both central and local levels—it has led to various theories and prejudices. The present article will study the differences between the performance of STEM students who have decided to move from the south to the north and those who have decided to stay close to their hometowns. We devised multilevel modelling techniques to analyze this issue using administrative microdata from the Italian Ministry for Universities and Research (MUR), including eight cohorts of students from AY 2008–2009 to AY 2015–16, who enrolled in STEM fields after earning their high school diploma. One of the main findings is that individuals who moved from the south show lower levels of performance than their stayer counterparts who are enrolled in northern or central universities.

Students’ university mobility patterns in Europe: an introduction

“…What are the differences in performance between the stayers and the movers and between the movers and the native central-northern students? (D' Agostino et al, 2021). Is there student mobility across northern regions?…”

Universities’ Attractiveness and Grading Policies: A Spatial Competition Model

“…Accordingly, several empirical studies are able to show how the main driver of students' choice of university is to be searched in the local socio-economic characteristics of origin and destination, especially in terms of labor market conditions (Croce and Ghignoni, 2011;D'Agostino et al, 2019). Students want to anticipate the job market, moving soon towards those places able to give them better chances of being collocatated on a suitable employment, in many cases facing several 'settling costs' from economic, psychological, and social points of view (D'Agostino et al, 2021). They seem also very interested in the competencies they are going to acquire, showing high selectivity in their choice of the educational curricula (Columbu et al, 2021) Thus, students are not attracted by departments providing on average a higher level of grades.…”